Last Modified: Saturday, November 16, 2013 at 9:55 p.m.

Teacher Dee Levy talks with Kindergartners as other teachers help manage the car line after school at Eighth Street Elementary School in Ocala.

Alan Youngblood/Star-Banner

It’s been six months since Gov. Rick Scott announced his plans to give $2,500 raises this school year to Florida’s 180,000-plus public school teachers.

The state Legislature followed suit, budgeting $480 million to accomplish Scott’s wishes. It was trumpeted as a great day for education.

But as the holidays arrive, and the mid-point of the school year approaches, Marion’s share of those funds remains in a bank account as the district negotiates with the teachers’ union, the Marion Education Association.

Marion is among 30 of the state’s 67 districts that hasn’t reached an agreement.

For Marion’s 2,800 teachers, those raises will likely not start appearing on paychecks for many months after the holidays.

Levy paused for a second Thursday when asked what she would do with her raise if she got it now.

“I would pay off some bills and could buy extra Christmas gifts,” she said. “Well, the bills would have to come first.”

Teachers have gotten used to waiting out the long, often continuous negotiations between the district and the MEA.

This year’s negotiation is about much more than the Scott raises. Many issues are on the table, from the district’s desire to cut into teacher work-day time to the union’s wish for back pay for teachers based on experience.

And to complicate matters, the 2013-14 contract is part of what is called a “full-book” negotiation, whereby both sides go through the contract line by line. That procedure happens once every three years.

The MEA wants the district to invest in its teachers. The School Board says money is tight and it can’t afford to add any more money above the Scott raises.

It appears it will be months before this school year’s 2013-14 contract is resolved. That means teachers are working without a contract.

The district and MEA were still at the negotiation table as late as Friday afternoon at district headquarters.

“This should have been done already,” said Levy, wondering when she will ever see her money.

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Lisa Krysalka, the district’s executive director of human resources, said the state did not adequately fund the so-called “Scott raises.”

Originally, Scott promised $2,500 for all the state’s 180,000-plus public teachers, including those at charter schools.

On top of that, after the $480 million was approved by the Legislature, school districts learned many more job titles were added to the list of recipients.

Krysalka said principals, assistant principals and guidance counselors are among just a few positions who now qualify for the raises.

Therefore, Krysalka said, the money the district received from the state does not cover $2,500 for each employee on the list. The raises will likely be more like $2,000.

A month ago, only 13 of the state’s 67 school districts had reached agreements with unions. That frustrated Scott, who issued a letter to school superintendents.

“Florida teachers deserve a salary increase, and they should have the benefit of knowing their new salary level as soon as possible so they can best plan for their futures,” Scott wrote.

Since that letter, the number of counties that have finalized contracts has grown rapidly to 37.

Krysalka said Marion’s negotiations has been at a crawl, but it is no one’s fault.

“I suspect the counties which have ratified contracts are not in a ‘full-book’ year,” Krysalka said. “We are literally going through the contract line by line.”

The district has also been negotiating with two other unions, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, which represents employees like bus drivers, and the Marion Essential Support Personnel, which represents employees like teachers’ aides.

Krysalka said the district reached an agreement with both unions. Those agreements, once ratified, will give those employees 2-percent raises.

Krysalka said the district wants to give annual raises to teachers, but the budget is tight because of the recession, which began in late 2007.

Chris Altobello, the MEA president, said it is time for the district to start paying what it owes.

“We need to have some type of investment from the county (school district) when it comes to our teachers,” said Altobello, adding the pay increases should not all come from the state.

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Almost every year, negotiations are behind and by the time both sides reach agreements, the year is almost over.

Last school year’s 2012-13 contract wasn’t finalized until June, just weeks before the fiscal year ended.

This year is no exception. The school year began July 1 and both sides are far apart on a deal.

Many wonder why the district can’t just issue the raises while the two parties negotiate. It is not as easy it may seem.

The Public Employee Relations Commission, known as PERC, governs labor disputes between government agencies and unionized public employees.

PERC states that both parties must come to an agreement on all issues in one ratified contract. The contract can’t be cobbled together a bit at a time.

So until a half-dozen issues are hammered out and a new contract is created and ratified, the raises will remain in limbo.

It’s now nearly Thanksgiving, and the school district and the MEA remain far apart on a few issues.

On top of the raises, the MEA wants the district to pony up money to reinstate past-due compensation based on experience.

These are called experience steps, a chart known as a salary schedule that is included in every teacher’s signed contract. The School Board denied teachers that experience pay in each of the past two years.

A step is base pay for a teacher primarily linked to the employee’s length of service. Experience steps should not be confused with cost-of-living or performance raises. That’s when the School Board increases every step on the entire schedule by a certain percent.

The board has not given teacher raises since the 2009-10 school year, which means their base pay has not changed in four years.

And since 2011-12, the district has not paid teachers for their increased years of experience. That means the district is two years behind paying teachers for their experience on the salary schedule.

The district says there’s noting written in the contract that guarantees those experience step increases.

It costs the district about $1.4 million each time all teachers move up one step on the scale.

A few months ago during negotiations, MEA officials asked the district to pay the two years of delinquent experience step increases on top of the Scott raises.

If the district had agreed, the average teacher would have gotten roughly $2,400 in raises this year.

In that scenario, the cost to the district would have been $9.8 million — $2.8 million above the cost of the Scott raises. The district responded that it would only agree to the Scott raises.

The union has countered, asking the district to pay for just one of the past-due experience steps and the Scott raises.

Under that proposal the district’s additional cost would be $1.4 million and teachers would receive roughly $2,200. With no step increases, the teachers will get roughly $2,000. The amounts could vary, since there are many employees with different job titles earmarked for the raises.

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